June 23, 2008

Close Encounters of the BUG Kind

She's a nice girl who works here at the bank. And a couple of weeks ago she woke up to discover that during the night she was bitten by...

A BROWN RECLUSE!Eek!

...on her rear-end.

For reasons that are unknown to me, and I think even to herself, she decided to wait 'a couple of days' before visiting the emergency room. By that time, the venom had really gotten to work on the bite area and the surrounding flesh. She said there was an area about 3 inches in diameter that was turning hard, black, and extremely painful. The doctors had no choice but to take a scalpel and cut out the infected area.I'll pause while you scream and rip your hair out. P.S. This gets worse.

After shooting her up with pain-killers and cutting out the skin, they had to drain it and put gauze in the wound, etc., etc.They sent her home with some happy pills and patched her up real good.But it wasn't over yet.Because of the bite she got a Staph infection. And the next weekend she got bit by an ant, and the bite was attacked by the Staph infection, and she was back in the hospital again.

This week she seems a bit better, she's on antibiotics and considering living in a sterile bubble until she finishes out her medication.

Meanwhile, I've been having Brown Recluse nightmares--and one about biting fish...

Anyway, last night Daniel and I were going to bed when I noticed something on the wall that sent chills down my spine. I just new it was some venomous creature lurking in the dark, waiting for me to fall asleep so it can crawl under the sheets and bite me on the butt."Turn the light on!" I screechedSure enough, it was a scorpion. A little one, which meant it would have surely killed me or one of my dogs.

Rather than smashing it immediately, Daniel had the bright idea of trapping it under a tiny squirt bottle cap.

"Well that's just great!" I said, "What are you gonna do now?!"He managed to crush the little beast after a few seconds of staring at his hand holding the small cap, wondering, "What am I going to do now?"

But despite the death of the scorpion, I felt no comfort or ease.Rather, for the rest of the night I lay there in terror, feeling stinging and biting all up and down my legs and especially my hiney.